November Banners

Hey there!

Decorating my home is always fun. I try to keep it thrifty and I definitely add as much DIY as I possibly can. Sure, those nice things from those nice stores are, well, nice. But, something homemade, from my own hands, is sweet. I can look year after year at my creations and smile a little bit, knowing that no matter how crudely designer they are, they are some of the most special things I own.

This year I wanted to add new banners and garland to the collection. I made several types during October -- tissue paper tassel and a spooky yarn garland. Why stop in October? I decided to try my hand at some fall banners and garland.

First things first - I needed a definition. I tend to interchange the two words and I wanted to know the true definition of each. So...

Garland - a wreath of flowers and leaves, worn on the head or hung as a decoration (dictionary.com).

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Banner - a long strip of cloth bearing a slogan or design, hung in a public place or carried in a demonstration or procession (dictionary.com).

So now we know the difference. Will it keep me from using the wrong one at the wrong time? Probably not, but at least you'll be able to catch it.

I made three cute banners this weekend. They weren't time consuming at all. I was able to multitask (i.e., watch YouTube) while making them.

The first banner that I made was a felt fall leaf banner. All you need for this project is several colors of felt, some type of twine or cording, sewing pins for securing your template to the felt and a leaf template. I found my template online at livecrafteat.com.

The banner is pretty simple to make. You secure your template to the felt, cut the leaves out and attach them to the twine. I have a more in-depth blog post here that shows you step by step how to accomplish this cute little banner but it's pretty intuitive. This banner would be perfect over a mantle (with the fire place OFF) or around the Thanksgiving table. Mine is going to hang in front of my television.

My second banner that I made was a DIY dream! It's a fall paper chain kit that I picked up at Hobby Lobby and pieced together. I wanted to show you good people that you don't always have to start from scratch with your projects. Maybe you don't have all the cute paper that I have at home or glitter and glue. You don't have to! Picking up a readymade kit is just as fun. This $3.99 kit can be used to make an almost 7 foot chain but I decided to cut strips of paper and add them to my paper chain kit.

The back of the kit comes with pretty precise instructions but you're just going back to arts and crafts in elementary school and looping paper through loops. It's fun and if you need to keep the kiddos busy this is the thing that will do it. Just beware -- if you leave them too long with too much paper, your entire house will have a fall paper chain around it!

My third banner was a cute fabric banner. I saw several examples on Pinterest and just knew I had to try my hand at it. It's easy once you get the hang of it.

I picked up 8 pieces of fabric (a yard each is plenty) at Joanns. Besides fall fabric, you just need twine and scissors.

I cut my fabric into 2 inch strips of material. You can cut smaller if you'd like but I liked the chunky strips that I came up with. It would be cute to make smaller, 1 inch strips but that will take you a bit longer to adhere.

All of the examples that I saw online said take two kitchen chairs and connect your twine to each chair. To be honest, I don't know of an easier way to do it. This worked perfectly for me. You see that my chairs are about 6 feet apart. If I wanted a longer fabric banner, I'd just do this part two or three times and connect them together. The joints can be the hanging points on my wall so that no one will see them or you can add fabric over them.

Then I looped my fabric over the twine and secured it in place. It takes a minute to get into a rhythm so that you don't have to keep shifting the fabric in order to get a tight fit. Once you get your stride going, it doesn't take long at all. Including cutting the fabric, this banner took me about 35 minutes (also including coffee sipping time). I won't say it's a simple DIY but it's not bad and the outcome is so cute!

There are so many banners and garlands that you can try out this season. What have you been thinking about making? Do you have a favorite banner that I should try? Tag me on Instagram and let me see what's draping the walls of your home!